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Kotaku has a follow-up feature to their earlier look at the declining PS3 market on EBay. Post author Michael Fahey has now gone back and looked at Ebay sales, comparing the PS3 and the Wii. Unlike the sharp dips and spikes the PS3 market has suffered, the price seems to be fairly constant for the Wii console. From the article: "Considering the small window that the PlayStation 3 auctions had to turn a truly amazing profit, prospectors would have been better off in the long run purchasing a couple of Wiis, which have maintained an average profit margin of 45-50% since preorders became available. Definitely not a windfall, but a much more financially sound investment in the long run. Unfortunately these launches weren't about being sound financially. They were about betting on the big bucks, and the majority of the PS3 prospectors out there played the tables and lost."

I think it is WAY early to say this. I mean, the console just came out less than 2 months ago. To say that the PS3 is not living up to, expectations, other systems, etc, is being short sighted. I agree, at launch, this system is only tepid. But most systems at launch have been the same way.

Now granted, at Launch the Wii was much better positioned. But I think we need to wait long term to make a decision which systems flopped and did what they wanted to do. And more importantly, who the consumer choose as the winner.

There are not enough systems to satisfy demand. Thus, the price is going to rise. Some people pay this additional price in time tracking down shipments and waiting for hours outside stores, others pay in money to scalpers (who themselves paid in time). I fail to see why one is worse than the other.

In Simpsons episode "Homer Loves Flanders" Homer stand in line to get tickets. He is second in line, and thinks he has a good chance. The person in front is a scalper that buys them all and it is sold out with the first purchase. That's what happens here. If the scalpers didn't buy them in large numbers from the stores, then the availablility would be better and the price of those sold would be at a lower price. The bottom fell out because scalpers were hoarding them, and when the price got to the point where they had to liquidate to ensure they didn't take a loss, the prices dropped very quickly. The shortage was more like the "sold out" situation in the Simpsons. It was artifically created by the scalpers.

When the cause of the problem gets screwed by the problem that they created, "good" is the thought running through my head. They were profiteering off a shortage they helped create.